A Southern California woman who was fed up together with her packages being stolen from her mailbox sent an Apple AirTag to the address and cleverly tracked down the suspected thief, police said.
The woman had several items stolen from her mailbox on the Los Alamos post office, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday. If her mail is stolen again, she hopes the AirTag will help track down the thieves.
On Monday morning, sheriff’s officers were called to the post office on a report of mail theft. When they arrived, the girl told officers that her mail had been stolen again – including the package containing the AirTag.
Police tracked the AirTag to a block in Santa Maria, about 16 miles from the post office, and arrested two suspects – a 27-year-old from Santa Maria and a 37-year-old from Riverside.
They found the package containing the AirTag within the victim’s mail, in addition to items believed to have been stolen from greater than a dozen other people. The woman declined to disclose her identity, the sheriff’s office said.
The two suspects were booked into jail for possession of checks with intent to defraud, conspiracy, and identity and bank card theft. The 37-year-old was also charged with burglary and a number of other other theft offenses out of Riverside County.
The sheriff’s office commended the mail theft victim for contacting authorities so that they could arrest the suspects as an alternative of attempting to contact them herself.
